Uber joins Lyft to attract investors

Uber Technologies Inc. filed a confidential paper for its IPO this week, according to people familiar with the matter, as it is the first to market with its smaller competitor, Lyft Inc.

The filing of Confidential Form S-1 brings Lyft back and forth, with both planned IPOs to become one of the largest in a flood of offerings for 2019. Lyft said it had filed its S-1 on Thursday and the people involved in the matter said it intends to debut in March or April.

Uber's filing indicates it could go public in the first quarter, the Wall Street Journal reported in October. That would be sooner than many observers expected. Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber's Chief Executive, said he expects a debut in the second half of next year.

Uber has named the planning for his IPO "Project Liberty," according to one of the people who are familiar with his plans.

That may be a canny reference to the thousands of employees and investors who have been waiting years to sell their full stake in the company for a profit, one person said. Uber has recently made secondary sales so that some investors and employees have been able to sell some of their shares.

Details of Uber's submission, including the time of submission, were not immediately available. The company's bank advisors have suggested that the company could go public with a $ 1

20 billion mark, the Journal reported. The company's most recent private valuation was $ 76 billion when it sold a $ 500 million stake in Toyota.

Based on the pipeline of potential IPOs in 2019, including data mining company Palantir Technologies Inc., Slack Technologies Inc. and Airbnb Inc., it could be a record-breaking year for dollar launches. It could exceed the limit reached in 2000, when tech companies fought their highly rated ratings at the height of the dot-com boom.

Uber and Lyft as well as companies outside the US such as the Chinese Didi Chuxing Technology Co. and Singapore's grave. Have radically changed the way people move in urban areas and upgraded traditional taxi companies. Businesses have used their core businesses to expand to other services, such as serving meals and sharing bicycles.

But Uber is unprofitable like Lyft. The loss in the third quarter increased to $ 1.07 billion, with revenue up 38% to $ 2.95 billion. The most recent bond issue documents are expected to be out of the red for at least three years. Lyft had a loss of $ 254 million on sales of $ 563 million in the last quarter, the Journal reported.

Lyft has raised $ 5.1 billion to date, compared to $ 20 billion for Uber. Both figures include debt financing. Uber employs 20,000 people worldwide, four times more than Lyft.

Uber will likely highlight the success of side projects such as UberEats and the food-stuffing forwarding business for its presentations to potential investors, people have said that are familiar with the matter. It operates in approximately 70 countries worldwide, while Lyft is only in the US and Canada.

Uber had a market share of 69% in the US market, while Lyft in October according to Second Measure was 28%. Data for card issue.

Mr. Khosrowshahi has put IPO planning at the forefront of his work in recent months. Recent employees include the company's first chief financial officer for more than three years, a new chairman and a chief compliance officer.